Tuesday, November 20, 2007

It's all about the buffs.

Let me regale you with a short story of my last two raid events - Zul'Aman Monday night, and Gruul's Lair on a learning run with another guild on Friday.

In Gruul's Lair, I was in a group where the only notable buff was Leader of the Pack. We ran with only 2 Paladins, me and a Holy Pally, so my only 2 buffs were Salv and Wisdom.

I ran about 500-550 DPS for the total run, tops. A lot of running was a factor, as Gruul's involves getting chased off your boss fights, but it was still weak and I was frustrated at my performance.


Last night, I helped out on our last attempt of the cat boss. I was in a group with a feral druid, an Enhancement shammy (though no WF - agi was used for the druid), a fury warrior and a rogue. This time I had Kings, Might, Salv, Battle Shout, totems, Unleashed Rage, and LotP.

870 DPS.

I even used pots and and weightstones in Gruul's that I didn't touch for the ZA attempt. If I'd used my consumables, and gotten Improved WF outta the shammy, 1k DPS would have been no sweat.

So remember, it's ALL about the buffs. Running in a group with little buffing to help your damage will leave you languishing at the bottom. Running in a group with a absolute pile of buffs will have you rocking the charts from beginning to end.

6 comments:

Shwitz44 said...

Indeed. Paladins, both prot and ret, scale much the same as warriors. Buffs and gear upgrades have a multiplicative effect on 'em, especially the two-hand users. Buff out!

-Baelor, former 70 paladin of Runetotem server

Alex - aka Firelight said...

Its all about 1 thing mate..

Shamans!

Alex - aka Firelight said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BRK said...

The time has come for you to bring WoWWebStats pics and analysis to your DPS musings. We don't have a ret pally in our guild and would love to see the data.

Please?

BRK

Michael said...

This is true BRK. I've been talking about it with the guild for awhile now and we'll probably start using WWS.

The only real problem is we haven't hit 25-mans yet, so I'm not always rolling in a "melee" group. The shaman uses an agi totem for the tanks, we don't have a warrior, we don't have enough Pallies for me to get might, or kings, etc.

Thus, my numbers are off. Ret Paladins are the most raid-dependent DPS spec by far, and if you drop all the buffs it's lights out, otherwise we just kinda suffer along with 500-600 DPS, tops.

Still though, it's time for some numbers, you are correct. I'll start working WWS for the next raid.

Feanor said...

Actually you should slap your shaman ;-)

A war and you in a group : that means WF + totem of strenght : whatever other members in the group.